Hidden Wounds
by ohmytheon
Summary: Rebecca has always known that Riza has had a soulmate tattoo mark that she keeps hidden; she just isn't prepared when she sees it for the first time.


**Author's Notes:** So I was given the prompt, Royai + "Rebecca could keep her secrets." This was the first thing to pop into my mind and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. I'll definitely be writing more of this soulmate tattoo AU, as I have a special fondness for it. This ties in with the soulmate tattoo AU that I wrote in my 100 Royai Drabble series, **"you pull me through time"** , but can be read on its own.

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing, nada, zip!

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 **Hidden Wounds**

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The showers in the dorms didn't leave much room for privacy, but sometimes it was all they could get after a mission. At least they were separated from the men's locker room. Rebecca had heard enough horror stories that made shivers crawl up her spine. Jean did not leave much room for imagination and she still had nightmares whenever she remembered the story about him stealing Mustang's clothes and then Major Alex Armstrong showing up and…

Oh, god, she did _not_ want to think about that right now. All she wanted to do was enjoy the warm shower that she was taking after a grueling mission that involved trouncing around in the sewers.

Rebecca sighed as the water ran over her head and washed away the remaining soap from her body. She'd scrubbed herself down more than once, but that still didn't wipe away the invisible grime off her skin. To her left in the next shower stall was Riza, doing the same painstakingly careful wash. That poor woman had the unfortunate luck of falling into the sewage completely upon pushing General Smug Face out of the way of a rushing madman.

 _Poor Riza,_ the Lieutenant thought to herself as she made sure there was no shampoo left in her wild mess of hair. Her friend really did get the worst of things when it came to protecting her commanding officer.

Finishing up her shower first, Rebecca turned off the water and then slipped a hand out from behind the curtain to grab the towel hanging on a hook. She rubbed at her hair to dry it off (somewhat uselessly) and swiped at her body before wrapping it around herself to make sure that she was covered up. For the most part, she was comfortable with her body (Jean had choked on his own tongue when he first saw her wander around her apartment naked.), but she knew that Riza preferred modesty.

Despite the fact that her best friend had an admittedly incredible body, she hid herself more often than not. It really was a shame. She'd look amazing in a strapless dress or a slinky dress that showed off her back…

Steam rose in the air in the locker room. Rebecca smiled to herself as she wiped the mirror down. Riza took her showers scolding hot and it always caused a lot of steam. Rebecca had gotten used to that at the Academy, reminding her of a sauna. The other woman was ridiculous.

"Oh, god, I never thought I'd get that grime off of me," Rebecca sighed dramatically once she heard Riza turn the shower off.

Riza harrumphed from behind the curtain of her shower. "You didn't fall into the actual grime, so I'm pretty sure you were just imagining it."

Laughing, Rebecca just shook her head as she began to pick at her hair. It was already becoming a disaster. She had so much hair and it took forever to dry out, but the moment she got out of the shower, the few strands that did would begin to stand on end. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Riza stepping out of the shower and clutching at a large towel wrapped protectively around herself – but what Rebecca's sharp sniper trained eyes immediately locked onto was Riza's unusually bare left forearm and the messy black handwriting that marked it.

They had been best friends for nearly a decade. Rebecca and Riza had been roommates at the Academy, two opposites of the spectrum and destined to be as close as sisters despite such facts. She may have acted like a silly nitwit at times, but Rebecca knew a few things about her best friend that few people rarely pieced together. One) Riza did not like to talk about soulmate tattoo marks; two) Riza did not have a soulmate tattoo mark when she was at the Academy; three) When Riza came back from Ishval, she was constantly wearing a brace on her left forearm apparently due to an injury; and four) Riza was incredibly defensive about that brace and never took it off in front of people.

Oh sure, Rebecca liked to play dumb sometimes, but she and Jean had had enough combined observations between the two of them to know one thing: Riza had a soulmate tattoo mark underneath that forearm brace and she didn't want anyone to see it. Rebecca only knew because Riza had drunkenly alluded to it one night a few weeks after she'd returned from Ishval. Under normal circumstances, Rebecca might've pressed for more information, being so curious about people's soulmate tattoo marks, but she had been more concerned about seeing her normally reserved friend being drunk for the first time to jump on the topic.

But she had never seen it before for her own eyes – until now.

Rebecca turned around on her heels. "You do have a soulmate tattoo mark!" The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop herself. For years, she had been respectful of Riza's privacy when it came to such things that it rather surprised her as well that she had blurted something so blunt out.

In response, Riza slapped a hand over the words scrawled on her arm. "It's nothing, honestly."

"Oh, come on now, Riza, why are you being so squeamish about it?" Rebecca asked, walking over towards her and poking her in the side.

Riza smacked her hand away. "So says the woman that refused to admit that she had a man's first words to her tattooed on her for years."

It didn't matter if she tried; Rebecca could not stop herself from blushing. When her soulmate tattoo mark had appeared, she had been utterly horrified at the words marking her hip, considering how inappropriate they were. And when they had been spoken to her, by a drunken baffoon, she had pretended that it had never happened. For years, the two of them had fluctuated between frantically making out to drag out fighting to not speaking to one another to cuddling on the couch on a Sunday afternoon. It could've had to do with the fact that she had never once owned up to having a soulmate tattoo while Jean had been all too willing to show his off.

These days though, they were on the same level. Rebecca was more than happy to tell people what her soulmate tattoo said, if only because Jean would grin cheesily in response and kiss her on the temple, telling people how lucky he was that she hadn't killed him on the spot and ended it right then and there.

Rebecca huffed. Her best friend deserved that kind of love too!

"Let me see," she needled.

Riza pulled her arm away. "Rebecca, please."

Rebecca lunged forward. "Stop being so ridiculous!"

"It's not–"

"That big of a deal!"

"Your busi– _Rebecca_!"

In their struggle, Riza's towel came undone and fell off, forcing Riza to let go of her arm and grab the towel so that she didn't expose herself entirely. Not that Rebecca would've blinked. She had been in the military for far too long to have not seen another naked woman (or man) before in the showers. Riza took so much care in covering her skin, her back and arm especially. But because of trying to protect her back, she exposed her arm.

Rebecca didn't see all of it – the handwriting was absolutely atrocious - but she saw enough to take all the breath out of her lungs and make her eyes widen in shock.

 _Call me Roy_

It only took her a second for Rebecca to know that she had seen something that perhaps no one else besides Riza and the speaker of these words had seen. She recalled the conversation she had with Jean ages ago, back when he had been paralyzed, and he had suggested the idea that Mustang and Riza were hiding soulmate tattoo marks, something very suspicious and coincidental. She had considered it then, but forgotten about it later. Now though…

Now it made perfect sense. Riza hiding the words that had been etched into her skin while she was in Ishval. Roy teasing her about how something hadn't been burned off his skin after he'd cauterized his own wounds after his confrontation with Lust. Rebecca felt like she couldn't breathe. Her best friend had realized who her soulmate was while in the middle of a war that she condemned herself for, perhaps while they had been on the front lines together. Tears struggled to spring into her eyes, but she shut them down with military precision.

"I'm sorry, Riza. I didn't mean…" Rebecca hung her head. "You know I love you and I would never do anything to hurt you, right?"

Riza sighed. "I know."

"Please don't be mad at me!" Rebecca burst out. For some reason, she could handle even Jean being mad at her for a little and she could take Mustang complaining about her for days for the rest of her life, but the idea of Riza being angry with her broke her heart. Riza didn't stay mad at people for long, so when she did, it was so awful.

"I know you were just teasing," Riza replied, smiling in an understanding manner. She had a hand back on her arm, covering the words. "Just don't…"

Riza trailed off, but then she knew that she didn't have to say anything else. The two best friends looked at one another and knew. Rebecca could keep her secrets. She always had.


End file.
